Full Transcript

Sari: 
Do you make something amazing in your home kitchen? That could be the award winning salsa, the amazing cookies. That coffee, tea, or kombucha that you love to make. Body care products, pet treats, the list goes on and on. But everybody tells you, you should start a business. And you're thinking yourself, maybe I should, maybe I could. And you want to start at a farmers market. You guys know I love farmers markets as a place to get started. Start small, get feedback. It's the least expensive way to get started. And I am here to help you with a free masterclass, just go to foodbizsuccess.com/masterclass. In this class, I give you the three step formula to get launched so you know exactly what you need to start with. And then what to expect at a farmers market and how to increase your sales when you're there. I also make you a special offer to get the Farmers Market jumpstart course, and to join our Fuel community. It's absolutely free, so what are you waiting for? Go get the Farmers Market Masterclass. I'll see you at a farmers market very soon.

Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell, I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach. And it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journeys so you can learn what worked and didn't work and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now let's jump in!

Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. So glad you guys are here. So this one's very timely, I literally just finished doing this. And it was like, I'm just going to go and record a podcast episode about this because I think it's something every entrepreneur needs to hear. Anybody thinking about working on their business, you need to be able to do this thing called Eat the Frog. I love this term because it's such a visual for me. I actually lived in France for a little while so frog legs were a thing. So that visual of this is extra sticky for me. Mark Twain had a quote that goes pretty close to this, that if you need to eat a frog, eat it first thing in the morning, and if you have to eat two, eat the biggest one first. So it's kind of a funny quote. But the idea behind it is that we all have those things that pile up in our lives, in our business that are the frogs. The things that we avoid, the things we really don't want to deal with, that we procrastinate on seem really big. And ironically, usually the frogs are actually pretty small things, they're things that don't actually take that much time, at least I have found that to be the case, my experience, usually one aspect of a project in our business, or it's sending those emails that really take 10 minutes or less to compose, but they feel big, they feel like they're going to take forever, right? You guys know those things. So the idea is like, every day, set aside time to think about what is the thing that I have been procrastinating on, that I have been avoiding? And let's just do it. And sometimes you can't do the thing yet. But can you do the next thing? Can you reach out to the person that you are like, I actually do have this question. I can't get my full license before I get this question answered as an example. And sometimes we just put those things off and it's totally irrational. You're like, once you do it, you're like, why on earth? Let's procrastinate. And there's a mental toll that happens when we don't do those things. Our brains can only hold so much information. My dear friend Kristen, shoutout to her, she has a great podcast called Fewer Things Better. But she recently had a podcast that talked about how we can, the magic number seven. And that is the most amount of things that we can really hold in our brain. And that's why when you don't write something down, like call the dentist or pay that bill or email that person, we have those middle of the night moments or, you know, just seems like just before bed, when I'm always like, oh, yeah. And then I'm like, ah, I don't want to get out of bed or write that down. But I've gotten in the habit of having a note in my phone, where it's like the frog list, maybe you could call it that, you've been put the little frog emoji. And when I remember those things, I'm like, okay, that was go on that list. And then in the morning, or, you know, make plans for it and just make a little space to be like, let me just get that done. There is such relief. And that dopamine hit that you're like, ah, I did that. I did that thing that has been weighing me down. So first thing is, get it out of your brain and onto paper so that you can deal with it at an appropriate time. But just do it, eat the frog first thing in the morning. Make that social media posts and that email, write that thing. I mean, sometimes they do take longer but put constraint on your calendar. I'm going to write my weekly email in 20 minutes or less. I'm going to set a timer and then it's going to be done. It's off my plate, and the mental load that gets freed up for you to go and do other things that you enjoy. But every business has stuff that you don't want to do. I promise you. For some of my folks like Master Your Business, I'm having them put a weekly financial time on their calendar. It's the Money Monday, or the Wealth Wednesday, or Financial Friday, whatever day, but there is 30 minutes on their calendar every week. I guarantee you, nobody wants to do it. You're going to look at your calendar and you're going to be like, oh, I don't want to do that. But Eat That Frog. Do it, get it done, make a game of it. Like how quickly can I get this done and get it off your plate? So this morning, I just realized that there was a lot of load, a lot of mental energy being spent on. I really need to follow up with this person. And I wonder if these people have decided on this, and I got to write this email and get this out. And so I just put that on my calendar. I just wrote down, here's the things I need to do. These are the frogs I need to eat this morning. And let's just get it done. And now I feel like I can get on with more meaningful, more enjoyable tasks.

That is this week's episode. I wanted to share this concept of eating the frog. If you have to eat two, eat the biggest one first. And you will get such a fun high that you're going to want to keep doing more. So go out, I hope you're inspired. Go eat the frogs, get some big things and small things off your list, and keep going. Until next time, have an amazing week.

The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done, you can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching or join Food Business Success which includes membership inside Fuel, our community of food business founders that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own Food Business Success.